Odin is the one-eyed All-Father of the Norse pantheon. His wife is Frigg, the Goddess of Wisdom. Odin carries out war and gives strength to his allies.
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Folklore
Odin rules the Aesir, who constantly battle frost giants that would cast the world into eternal darkness and Winter.
In the beginning, the frost giants ruled all of the lands from their plane known as Ginnungagap. Odin slew the frost giant Ymir and made the earth from his corpse. Odin has an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir. His two ravens are named Hunin and Munin. The birds fly in every direction, gathering news to whisper into the All-Father’s ears.
Odin sacrificed one of his eyes at Mimir’s Well beneath the World Tree Yggdrasil. From this same tree, Odin hung for nine days and nine nights, pierced by his own ash spear in order to gain knowledge about all of the nine worlds.
Namely, and from top to bottom, the worlds are Asgard, Alfheim, five on the same level Midgard, Jotunheim, Muspelheimr, Vanaheim, and Niflheim. Below that Svartalfheim and Helheim.
In modern popular fiction, Odin is portrayed as something of a villain. He has featured repeatedly in books by author Neil Gaiman as a sort of jolly grifter who is a worse trickster than Loki.
In Marvel Comics Odin is portrayed as a destructive character, often undoing what his heroic son Thor attempts to do.
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